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Attachmate and the SUSE Linux Project: What's Next?

Recently, the future of the SUSE Linux Project (as compared to the Novell commercial Linux distribution based on the work of that project) has become rather murky, as reported by Pamela Jones, at Groklaw. Apparently, Novell is facilitating some sort of spin out of the Project, which is good but peculiar news.

Why peculiar? Because when a company is subject to an agreement of sale, one of the requirements the buyer imposes during the sale-pending period is that the seller cannot engage in any transactions outside of the ordinary course of business without the consent of the acquiror. Except that Alan Clark, Novell's representative on the Project Board, is actively helping with the spin out. That being the case, one has to assume that Attachmate must support the spinout as well.

Shouldn't that be a good thing? In principle, yes, but the true intentions of Attachmate, which is a private company, are largely unknown. If the result is a truly independent foundation, then the spinout would be a welcome and long overdue development. But if the foundation is set up in such a way as to allow Attachmate to control everything that goes on, then the transition will be more illusory than real.